With winter in full swing, this semester has been off to a rocky start due to constant snowfall and low temperatures. 

Due to dangerous conditions in recent weeks, the university has had to shut down regional campuses and cancel morning classes for safety reasons. Despite these closures, the university has recently come under fire from its student body for not shutting down its main campus more often to keep students safe. 

Particularly on Jan. 21, many Kent State students let out their frustrations on Snapchat and Yik Yak about classes not meeting remotely on the main campus despite the cold weather conditions. Nick Austin, a sophomore criminology major, was one of those frustrated students. 

“I definitely think they should’ve just closed and kept students safe,” he said. “I noticed that with the sidewalks I was slipping a lot, so it wasn’t all smooth sailing. I almost fell a couple of times.” 

Austin added that he wasn’t the only one impacted by the weather conditions. He said there was a lack of students in class and there were also other students slipping on the sidewalk. 

“It definitely wasn’t safe,” Austin said. 

Despite student concerns, Kent State believes it made the right decision in keeping the main campus open. Mark Polatajko, senior vice president of finance and administration, defended the decision. 

“This isn’t a decision made in a vacuum by one individual,” he said. “There are five individuals that have an expertise here. We’re sharing information, and I absolutely think we made the right decisions on Tuesday and on Wednesday in the best interest of our university and campus community.” 

Polatajko explained the decision to close down a campus involves a five-person team made up of himself, two provost members, the AVP of facilities and planning operations and the director of public safety. He added the group meets on a regular basis to discuss a variety of weather data, such as: wind chill, snow accumulation and local road and highway conditions. If these variables seem too severe, closures or delays will be put in effect. 

These variables are also the same for Kent State’s regional campuses; the only difference being regional campus deans have the ability to cancel or delay classes. Although it seems that regional campuses close more often than the main campus, Polatajko said it comes down to the university’s geographic footprint, and that each area faces its own weather challenges at different times. 

“Kent State University’s system covers 500 square miles of Ohio; that’s the size of the state of Connecticut,” he said. “Because of that geographic diversity, that’s why we empower the regional campus deans to make those decisions because those are localized events, and they’re not broad.”

Before the week began, many local K-12 schools announced they’d be closed for specific days throughout the week due to the windchill. The University of Akron also closed its campus and held remote classes Jan. 21 and 22. 

While Polatajko and the team considered Akron’s announcement, they felt it was made too early. During group meetings on the weekend and early into the next week, decisions became clear for opening campus Tuesday and delaying classes Wednesday. 

“There was a significant improvement in the wind chill forecast for Tuesday. … We said we don’t have to take action in terms of either a delay or closure,” Polatajko said. “Our bigger concern became Wednesday, and as we met on Tuesday, we definitely made a decision early on that the wind chill was going to be significant.”

While many students felt the conditions were too dangerous to open campus for classes, Polatajko said the university values the safety of students immensely. 

“Safety of our students, faculty, staff and community is our number one priority regardless of what the activity is,” he said. “Based on that, we felt we made the most informed decision.” 

John Engoglia is a beat reporter. Contact him at [email protected].